AJAX Growing in Emerging Markets

An Evans Data study shows that Asynchronous JavaScript and XML development is growing faster in emerging markets than in North America.

The use of the AJAX style of development is increasing and is growing even faster in emerging markets than in North America, according to a recent survey.
Evans Data, of Santa Cruz, Calif., found Asynchronous JavaScript and XML adoption to be generally higher in the emerging markets than in North America, particularly in Brazil, where 25 percent of developers surveyed said they are using AJAX. China had the lowest rate of AJAX adoption, with just over 16 percent of developers claiming to use AJAX.
AJAX adoption among North American developers was just below 18 percent, the Evans study said.

"While we see strong adoption of AJAX globally, our latest research indicates the developer community in the emerging markets is embracing this programming model most aggressively," said John Andrews, president of Evans Data, in a statement. "Given that these developers are spending a majority of their time developing Web applications, we only see this trend continuing."
Evans Data surveyed more than 400 developers from Eastern Europe, Brazil, China and India.
The Evans study also looked at PHP adoption. The study found that the largest number of developers using PHP can be found in Eastern Europe, where 39 percent of developers surveyed said they use PHP. India and Brazil showed similar adoption rates, with just over 31 percent of developers saying they use PHP.
In contrast, only 21 percent of Chinese developers said they are using PHP, while in North America, 35 percent of the developers surveyed said they are using PHP.
The Evans study came up with some other findings, one being that 42 percent of the developers in emerging markets surveyed said they are using Adobes Flash. Also, increased usage of Linux for embedded operating systems is expected across all regions, and China is leading the way with 39 percent of developers using it. And nine out of 10 emerging market developers use Windows as the primary platform on which they host development.
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Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.